


Found in Translation

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is disconcerting to the new professors when their subjects change them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Found in Translation

  
It is disconcerting to the new professors when their subjects change them. It is a subtle part of Hogwarts' magic – it is not well-known, though the ghosts and portraits whisper of it sometimes late at night, when the corridors are empty and the moon is in the right phase, casting shadows that reach down the long corridors and into the heart of Hogwarts.   
  
Bathsheba has long known of it; she felt it when she first came to teach. The subject changes the instructor. Minerva is as strict and unyielding as the magic that she teaches – Flitwick is as bubbly and light-hearted as his Charms – Sibyl is as imprecise and vague as the branches of Divination that she practices. When Severus Snape comes to teach at Hogwarts, Bathsheba knows that he will become as harsh as the most acidic of his poisons.   
  
It is not only Hogwarts that works the change – she knows the life he is forced to lead, and when he comes back to Hogwarts late in the night, weary and cold, she makes sure that the house elves have hot tea waiting for him. She gives him what comfort she can, as much as he will accept.  
  
For, in the end, she is the Professor of Ancient Runes, and Hogwarts has helped her become a true master of the subject. Bathsheba can translate anything, be it ancient runes or the ineffable language of a man's heart.   
  
When Charity is gone, when Snape has no choice but to take the post of Headmaster, Bathsheba is still there to comfort him. She draws sigils of protection over the door to his quarters, burning them into the wood and hiding them with a glamour. She sends tea and whisky and makes sure that the house elves send him regular meals, pestering him until he eats.   
  
It is a long year, a long hard road that he has chosen to walk, and even when Hogwarts is not influencing him, Severus is the mirror of the subject that he taught for so many years. Because he has taught poisons, because Hogwarts has helped him, Bathsheba knows that he will be invulnerable to them, and so it is.   
  
When the news comes to her that he is fallen in battle, she goes to him and helps him. There's little enough left for her to do, once his antivenin has done its work – a spell to clean away the blood, another to finish the healing of his wounds and make certain there will be no scarring. She helps him to his feet.  
  
"Why are you still here?" he asks, looking down his long nose at her.   
  
She knows that he knows the origin of the teas and the whiskeys, the meals that appeared at his elbows when he worked. Small things make a difference – a good meal and a full stomach can be enough to spell contentment, even when the soul is weary. They both know that, Severus because he has learned it and Bathsheba because she has watched over him. None of the other professors would have suspected her as the source of the gifts, but Severus is as subtle as a potion and as deadly as a poison, as Bathsheba well knows. She shrugs.  
  
"I read men's hearts," she says. Later, she will explain to him that Hogwarts has changed her as surely as it has changed him – later, she will explain everything. Translation is her business, after all.


End file.
